Bloggerhouse presents: The Return of The Shelved Album (World Renown)

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World Renown was a duo comprised of Seven Sean, whom was the cousin of K-Def (famed producer of groups, L.O.T.U.G., Da Youngstas and 1/2 of Real Live) and John Doe, whom strangely enough was also a cousin of legendary producer Marley Marl, whom also served as a mentor to the aforementioned K-Def. Are you confused yet? Don’t be, as World Renown’s self-titled 1995 album is a true find and one of my favorite unreleased LPs that is fortunate to have partially seen the light of day. Sadly, after two lukewarm 12″ releases in the form of the Phife-sampled “How Nice I Am” (“Now here’s a funky introduction of how nice I am”), which was also sampled by GangStarr for “ALONGWAYTOGO”, and “Come Take A Ride”, Warner Brothers was nice enough to discontinue the release, even after the album received a commendable 3.5 mics in The Source.

In mid-2009, word started to spread quickly throughout blogosphere that the unreleased World Renown LP was soon to be re-released. However, what soon followed was a release on World Renown’s MySpace page, yet three/four tracks remained incognito, as producer K-Def could not recover the lost “loosies”, or I assume that Marley Marl may still have those tracks in his possession? Yet true underground heads quickly rushed to purchase the individual tracks via Snocap and to be quite honest, World Renown’s debut has become a true mainstay amongst the “Most Played” list on my Ipod. While Seven Sean and John Doe are more than efficient on the mic but not overwhelming, the atmospheric production courtesy of Blackcat and K-Def, but mainly K-Def (think L.O.T.U.G.’s “Here Come The Lords” or Real Live’s “The Turnaround”) is, to disagree with The Source, both “stimulating and fulfilling”. Yet it’s disheartening to learn that none of Marley’s productions were included on the album that was recently made available for purchase.

However, what we at Bloggerhouse have delivered to you today, is not the original album. I’m not quite sure if “Definition of a MC” is the same as “Real MCs”, and the tracks, “World Renown” (which also played during the intro of the “How Nice I Am” video),”Mind Over Matter”, “State of Mind” and the original version of “Come Take A Ride” weren’t included in the download that was made available via World Renown. Even so, this album is a must have, but damn, 3/4 cuts is a lot!? So, yeah, I guess you could say that The Source called it nearly 15 years after the fact: “stimulating, but not fulfilling”.

The copy that you have, is exactly what i purchased from their myspace, when they released it. There are the remixes of Come Take a Ride (Extra Ride & Revibed), which can be found. I actually prefer the Extra Ride version, which will remind you of Tic Toc, by LOTUG.

You have put me on a quest to pull the other joints that you mentioned, which I don’t have.

BTW, on their myspace, the link to the How Nice I Am video was removed for copywrite violation. That is jacked up if they can’t link, and they are the artist.